Friday, February 15, 2013

Mental health days are a critical component to a CEO's life, especially if you are a CEO which requires you to be available 24/7. They are needed when a CEO shines - when one makes good choices and goes above and beyond what's necessary at work - it's good to pause and reflect on occasion. Good choices include building great teams, innovating, making your company money, building foundations, saving your company money, and the most critical piece is moving your company forward. CEOs have to gather information to access all aspects of their company and make risky, good and tough decisions.

Mental health days are required when a CEO, who has an excellent track records and makes good decisions, is constantly trumped, questioned and overruled on critical business decisions by owners or shareholders. Especially when those decisions will require a CEO to make the same decisions again in a few months knowing they have to assign energy again to address, fix and realign the situation later. This can be a CEO's biggest challenge and one most CEO's face more often than they care to face.

If being a CEO were easy then everyone would do it. It's the most challenging position to hold, you become a key decision maker, you take risks, you make mistakes but learn from them and it's critical you consider all options when you make a decision and you must have buy-in from your team before you move forward. If that decision is overruled after executed then take that required mental health day and reflect. You may decide to modify your approach which is rare if you are successful or simply plan to execute the same decision later because it's required to move your company forward.